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Category Archives: Behaviour change

It’s always interesting to read the discussion threads on social media when new scientific papers on canine health and welfare matters are reported and when breed clubs publish their health survey results. I’ve written before about Cognitive Dissonance, a term that captures a multitude of reasons why it’s so hard to get people to see the need for improvement, let alone act to create change. In essence, it means people feel uncomfortable when newly presented evidence clashes with their existing beliefs and they try to find ways to reduce their discomfort.

Albert Einstein is quoted as having said “If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?” It should be no surprise that, with some research, the results are completely novel or, in some cases, unexpected. Newly published research should prompt us to ask the question “why?” – why might a particular association have been identified and why might the results have turned out like they did. Instead, we often find what appears to be cognitive dissonance kicking in. Here are some examples:

The sample is too small: Some research starts with very small samples, often for practical reasons such as cost or convenience. Any interesting findings need to be explored with further studies using bigger and more representative samples, not simply dismissed. Since we know how many dogs are registered in every pedigree breed each year, it is easy enough to estimate the UK population if we also know their average age of death. There are well-established statistical methods for judging the confidence that can be applied to samples so it doesn’t take much effort to decide whether a sample is really “too small”. The opposite effect also happens sometimes; the results of a small study may be misused to provide “evidence” for whole populations.

It’s misleading/skewed: This is a variant of “the sample is too small” but focusing on it being the wrong sample. All samples have some degree of bias; the important thing is to understand what that might be and most peer-reviewed papers have a section discussing potential limitations of the study. That’s where you can get an understanding of potential shortcomings in the chosen data and the potential to address these with future studies. A common criticism of breed health surveys is that the responses are skewed by people who have ill dogs or that “show people” won’t be honest. That’s why it’s important to look for other studies that perhaps cover different respondent samples to see what results were obtained there. Our first major Dachshund health survey was criticised by some for being biased with responses from 85% show breeders. When we repeated the survey 3 years later and had responses from 85% non-show owners, the findings were very similar.

It’s not scientific: This is a great one that gets trotted out to criticise breed health surveys, in particular. I don’t even know what it means. Is it because the report wasn’t written by someone with a PhD or administered by someone wearing a white lab coat? The expertise of most Breed Health Coordinators is backed-up by advice from the KC’s health team so there is invariably a strong scientific input into the design and analysis of breed surveys these days. The follow-on criticism of breed survey reports is sometimes that “it’s not peer-reviewed”. That’s probably true but most aren’t intended for publication in academic journals. The lack of peer review doesn’t negate their usefulness. Most are reporting basic descriptive statistics such as Means or Medians, and maybe Odds Ratios, often with Confidence Intervals and p-values.

We can’t do anything about it: Findings are written off because, in some people’s view, no action can be taken. For example, we found that incidence of back disease in Dachshunds is higher in Winter months than during the other 3 seasons. It prompts the question why. We could hypothesise that it’s due to them getting less exercise or some temperature effect. Whatever the reason (which more investigation might explore), it’s pretty unlikely that nothing can be done. “We can’t do anything about it” is often just a lazy response to avoid finding something that can be done. In fact, it’s just as lazy as responding with “what can we do to improve it?” unsupported by any suggestions.

We need more research: I’ve written before about the parallels between the tobacco industry’s response to the link between smoking and cancer and the dog world’s response to criticisms of health issues in pedigree dogs. A call for more research is sometimes just a smokescreen, looking for the perfect set of data which, of course, will never be found.

We need facts: This one is used alongside “it’s not scientific” and it’s hard to know what to make of such a comment when the report being referred to is full of data and analyses. The BBC says “a fact is something that can be checked and backed up with evidence” and “facts are often used in conjunction with research and study”. “Opinions are based on a belief or view”. Last year, it was reported that chocolate labradors live significantly shorter lives than the other colours. Although perhaps surprising, this “fact” can be checked by looking at the data and evidence presented in the paper. Additionally, it’s not the first example of a dog’s colour being associated with a particular aspect of its health so maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising.

My dogs don’t have that: We need to remember that data presented in papers and reports are from samples of populations. These will contain a range of cases and non-cases. Just because one breeder has never had a particular problem doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. “The plural of anecdote is not data“! Gregoire Leroy has written an excellent blog at dogwellnet.com about this, which he calls the “sampling effect”.

A nudge towards breed health improvement

My Christmas reading was Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed. It’s all about how people and organisations learn (or don’t). One paragraph really struck a chord with me:

“Science is not just about a method, it is also about a mindset. At its best it is driven forward by a restless spirit, an intellectual courage, a willingness to face up to failures and to be honest about key data, even when it undermines cherished beliefs.“

We do need to question the research that is published on canine health matters, not to knock it down but to understand how it can be used to help us. Every piece of research and every breed survey has the potential to nudge us towards actions that will improve the lives of our dogs.

This year, the International Partnership for Dogs will be holding its 4th workshop. Our Kennel Club is hosting the event which will take place from 30th May to 1st June, near Windsor. The Kennel Club was a founding partner of the IPFD since its inception in 2014 and hosted the first ever meeting of the IPFD Board that same year. Kennel Club Secretary, Caroline Kisko, is the Vice Chairman of the IPFD and our KC also provides the secretariat for board meetings.

A major goal of the International Dog Health Workshops (IDHW) is to promote collaboration and networking. This begins with the reception on the Thursday evening and continues throughout the next 2 days. All attendees are expected to share expertise/experiences and to participate actively in discussions in breakout sessions.

I attended the 3rd IDHW in Paris in 2017 and was privileged to be invited to make a short presentation on our work in the Dachshund Breed Council to develop and implement a breed health strategy. I also took part in the breed-specific health strategies workshop and this year I have been asked to help with the design and facilitation of that part of the programme.

As with previous IDHWs, the majority of time is spent in interaction: limited plenary talks have been chosen to highlight Themes; most time is spent in smaller group breakout sessions.

There are 5 main themes being tackled this year:

1) The concept of ‘Breed’ and how it influences health and welfare in dogs. How attitudes to the definition and understanding of breed affect actions for health; the history and future of outcrossing; public perception; conservation vs. development of breeds; the role/ influences of breed standards; judging for health/function not just appearance; experience in other species.

2) Supply and Demand. The reality of sourcing – national vs. registered/pedigree populations; commercial breeding: the reality; new developments in health and welfare management; ‘rescues’ / marketing; the role of different stakeholders.

3) Breed-Specific Health Strategies: By breed, nationally and internationally. Defining and sharing tools to support the work of breed clubs.

a) Health, welfare and breeding considerations; review of national and international efforts, on all fronts (consumers, show world, breeders, judges, vets, etc)since 2012 – what has been achieved?; brachycephalics; other existing and emerging issues; overcoming polarization and conflict, resolving science and emotion.

b) Education and Communication – Past practices may not have achieved desired outcomes. What are tools and techniques to promote human behaviour change? What can we learn from other fields?

“In God we trust, everyone else must bring data” – Dr. Edwards Deming

In 2017, one of the themes was “Show me the numbers” and some people might wonder why this has been dropped for 2019. It was obvious from the discussions within that theme in 2017 that it was actually cross-cutting, meaning it was a key aspect running through all the other themes. So, we can take it as read that improvement in any of the themes on the 2019 agenda will have to be underpinned by the availability of good data and evidence.

The format of this year’s workshop is slightly different from 2017; there are 4 interactive plenary sessions taking up a large part of the agenda on 31st May. These include short presentations by renowned experts from around the world. Nick Blaney, who heads up our KC’s Dog Health Group is among the speakers.

All change please!

I’ll be particularly interested to hear the presentation by Suzanne Rogers who is a Director of a consultancy: Human Behaviour Change for Animals (HBCA). I’m pleased to see she will be speaking about communication to promote change. When I spoke in 2017, I started by saying that dog health improvement was not a scientific, veterinary or genetic problem. My view was (and still is) that dog health improvement is a continuous improvement and change management problem. It is something we have to work on continuously and we can expect to see incremental improvement (rather than step-change) only if people behave differently. By “people”, I mean owners, breeders, exhibitors, judges, vets and everyone who directly impacts on the dog system. That is why it’s a change management issue. It’s also no good each of those groups acting independently in their own silos without thinking about how they could be collaborating with others in the system. The Brachycephalic Working Group is one example where a multi-stakeholder approach has been taken in order to produce a plan that has a broad consensus of support. We’ve seen too many campaigns by individuals and groups that simply alienate the people who have the potential to make improvements happen. That is still happening and it feels like lessons aren’t being learnt. I therefore hope Suzanne will be able to bring some new thinking to this year’s workshop. The HBCA website lists 4 pillars for change: the process of change; the psychology of change; the environment for change; and ownership of change. The importance of these has, in my opinion, not been sufficiently well recognised, understood or addressed in many breed health improvement efforts.

Breed-specific health strategies

At the 3rd IDHW, participants in this theme agreed that effective and sustainable implementation of health strategies requires innovative solutions to many different challenges. Provision of sufficient reliable information was agreed as critical, for both situational assessment as well as health screening and DNA testing of dogs. Considering the design of breed health strategies, the group agreed that it was important to identify and balance the major issues for each individual breed and give guidelines on how priorities could be determined for each, while still allowing breeders discretion to make their own decisions within an overall framework of requirements and recommendations.

The general conclusion was that there is no “one size fits all” solution for developing breed-specific health strategies and that the most effective interventions would need to be adapted according to the specific context of each breed, nationally and internationally.

This year, the activities for this theme will include:

Clarifying what we mean by a breed health strategy, by reference to currently available examples

Understanding the challenges facing breed clubs, such as how to get started with a breed strategy, how to maintain momentum and how to accelerate progress

The role of Kennel Clubs in the wider context (national and international), such as advocating for breeds, influencing legislation and providing resources for clubs and breeders

Identifying and sharing currently available resources and tools to address these issues

Identifying gaps in current capabilities (approaches, resources, tools) and how these might be addressed

It’s a lot of ground to cover in the 3 working sessions but, if 2017 is anything to go by, participants will bring a high level of knowledge and energy and leave with a clear sense of the priorities and tasks to be undertaken over the next 2 years.

The annual KC Breed Health Coordinators’ Symposium held at Stoneleigh on 19th September was attended by about 130 people. For the second year, it was open to people who are not BHCs, so it was good to see some “friends of BHCs”, other health team reps and folks with a genuine interest in breed health improvement, taking the opportunity to attend.

Last year, the KC’s health team launched a BHC Mentoring Scheme and six of us volunteered to act as mentors. The Mentors were allocated a 30-minute slot at the end of the morning session for a Q&A with the attendees. We took some pre-prepared questions in case the audience was too shy to ask anything but we should have known that BHCs are generally a talkative and inquisitive group. So, despite us being the only barrier between them and their lunch, we fielded plenty of good questions and still managed to finish on time.

Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of questions were about “people issues”, rather than technical topics such as running surveys or developing screening programmes. We were asked questions about dealing with confidentiality, how to use anecdotal evidence of problems and how to get people to participate.

Offline, I was asked if I could say something about how to create a culture of openness, trust and collaboration. It’s a question I’ve been asked previously when I have spoken at workshops about the work we have done in the Dachshund breed. Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the Q&A but it gives me a good topic for this month’s column!

Avoid fanfares and pronouncements!

First of all, you don’t start off by saying either that you want to, or you are going to, create a culture of openness, trust and collaboration. That might seem counterintuitive but it’s deeds, not words, that count. You have to do things that are consistent with and that help to build the culture you want.

As an example, the first breed health survey we did was very informal, asked a few questions about known issues and didn’t ask for the dog’s or the owner’s names. It gave us valuable baseline data but, more importantly, it clearly signalled that we valued people’s input and there would be no witch-hunt. Our follow-on survey collected 500 responses, mostly from the show community and most of whom happily gave their name and their dog’s name. We built openness and trust by publishing our analysis quickly without breaching any confidentiality.

It’s also important to realise that having a team-based approach to health improvement is far more likely to succeed than having one or two people dictating what needs to be done and presenting fait accompli solutions to breed clubs and their members. If you want widespread collaboration, those people leading your health initiatives have to work collaboratively. Again, it’s leading by example. Our Health Committee members share responsibilities for work and we willingly allow individual breed clubs to take the lead on issues that are important to them. So, the Miniature Dachshund Club takes the lead on eye conditions, opening up a wider pool of potential helpers and routes to engage owners in screening programmes. Similarly, the Wirehaired Dachshund Club takes the lead on Lafora Screening. In 2010, this was led by their Chairman and a committee who felt passionate about doing the right thing for the dogs. 9 years later, there is new leadership at the club but constancy of purpose has meant that “unsafe” breeding has been reduced from 55% of litters to around 5%.

It’s always about the purpose

I recently attended the retirement celebration for the Director of a Charity I’ve worked with for many years. Her chair of trustees introduced her as “the amazing Tina”, which she is, because of what she has enabled the organisation to achieve under her leadership. Significantly and spontaneously, her first words to us in the audience were: “It’s never about the person, it’s always about the purpose”.

That’s exactly what I’d expect every one of our Health Committee to say and so would our many other volunteers and helpers. None of them do it for personal glory or advancement. Their behaviour also sets the tone for other people to get involved and work collaboratively. We have dozens of fundraisers who believe in the purpose.

As an aside, Martin Luther King managed to get a quarter of a million people to turn up in Washington to hear him speak in 1963. He didn’t have the benefit of social media to promote the event. In his speech, he said “I have a dream” and had been using that phrase previously. People turned up to hear about his dream. He didn’t say “I have a plan” and he certainly didn’t say “this is how I’m going to implement it”. How many people would have gone to hear that?

Rewards and punishments don’t work

In pretty much all of our health improvement work, we have ignored the people who don’t want to participate. We haven’t used threats to force them to get on board or unleashed witch-hunts to make them look bad. We have put more effort into making it easy for those who want to participate to do so. That has included using our health fund to subsidise screening programmes and even to offer free “research” screening sessions where we need to gather data about new or emerging conditions.

We don’t really use rewards either. People get certificates with screening results but, more importantly, they get the satisfaction that they have done the right thing for their breed. We make sure our regular communications shout about these good news stories to encourage others to participate.

Regular communication using a wide variety of channels is critical. Social media is an essential tool – the clue is in the title: it’s “social” and a great way to engage, educate and collaborate with breeders, potential owners and current owners. It’s timely, too. Use it to communicate why you are doing things, what you’re doing, what’s been achieved and how people can help. Our Pet Advisors spend huge amounts of time sharing data and evidence in Facebook Groups to counter the anecdotal nonsense that can get published.

How long will it take?

That depends! If you’re doing the right things, consistently, and your deeds match your words, I am convinced you can begin to make a difference within 18 months. That depends on having a team of like-minded leaders. One or two people can’t railroad change through on their own.

You won’t get it all right the first time. Try hard, fail fast. You’ll make mistakes and annoy some people. Sometimes you’ll get a completely unexpected negative reaction. Apologise and move on. There is no place for politics and grudges in breed health improvement. Work with the people who want to be worked with.

Author Libba Ray said “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time”.

“Cognitive Bias” is a term that captures a multitude of reasons why it’s so hard to get people to see the need for improvement, let alone make the necessary changes that will improve the health of dogs. It’s also referred to as”Cognitive Dissonance”.

Breeders and exhibitors make many decisions every day about thei dogs. Everyone likes to think these are rational, but maybe things aren’t quite that simple.

Here are 20 types of Cognitive Bias which I read about in “Business Insider” and have interpreted for canine health.

1. Anchoring Bias: People rely on the first piece of information they hear. In a conversation about a particular health condition, the first person to comment on its prevalence sets the scene for everyone else’s views on the problem. “I’ve never seen it in 30 years of breeding” will anchor everyone in a mindset that it really can’t be an issue.

2. Availability Heuristic: People overestimate the importance of information that is available to them. Someone might argue that Cavaliers are not prone to heart disease because they know of a dog that lived to 15 with no disease.

3. Bandwagon Effect: The probability of one person adopting a view increases based on the number of other people who also hold that view. This is one reason why some stud dogs end up being so-called Popular Sires.

4. Blind-spot Bias: Failing to recognise your own cognitive biases, is a bias in itself. The classic manifestation is Kennel Blindness (“My dogs no longer have any faults”).

5. Choice-supportive Bias: When you choose something, you usually feel positive about it, even if you know it has problems. Choosing a stud dog to mate with your bitch often comes with this bias.

6. Clustering Illusion: This is the tendency to see patterns in random events, like the idea that red dogs of a particular breed are more likely to be aggressive.

7. Confirmation Bias: We tend to listen more to information that confirms our existing perceptions. This is perhaps one of the reasons why it is so hard to have a rational conversation about outcrossing as a means to improve genetic diversity and health.

8. Conservatism Bias: This is where people are slow to accept new evidence, for example the VetCompass data that shows, on average, crossbreed dogs live longer than pedigree dogs.

9. Information Bias: This is the tendency to seek more information rather than taking action. How much more data do people need before they get the message that high levels of inbreeding increase the risks of harmful mutations emerging and reduced levels of fertility. I’ve said before ‘if you wait for the perfect set of data, you will wait a very long time’. Sometimes, it’s easier to make a decision with less information.

10. Ostrich Effect: This is the decision to ignore dangerous or negative information by burying your head in the sand, like an ostrich. People who have invested time and effort in building a “line” of dogs are likely to be less inclined to acknowledge diseases or problems that can be traced back to their pedigrees.

11. Outcome Bias: Judging a decision based on the outcome, rather than on how the decision was made. Just because you bred a “healthy” dog with a Coefficient of Inbreeding of 30% doesn’t mean it was a smart decision.

12. Overconfidence: Some people are too confident about their abilities and this causes them to take greater risks. Experts are more prone to this bias than lay people, since they are more convinced they are right. Experienced breeders might believe they can “safely” mate two merle (dapple) dogs and not end up with deaf or blind puppies.

13. Placebo Effect: This is when simply believing something will have an effect causes it to have that effect. According to a study by Conzemius & Evans, a caregiver placebo effect by both dog owners and vets was common in the evaluation of patient response to treatment for osteoarthritis. Half the owners whose dogs received placebos stated that their dog’s lameness was improved during the study.

14. Pro-innovation Bias: People with new ideas often over-value their usefulness and under-value their limitations. Just because a new DNA test has been developed, doesn’t mean it’s important to use it, particularly if the mutation frequency is extremely low, or if the welfare impacts of the condition are minimal.

15. Recency: The latest information you receive is often weighed more heavily than older information. Conformational exaggerations seen in the ring today may be admired and rewarded, rather than remembering a breed’s original purpose and type.

16. Salience: This is the tendency to focus on the most easily recognisable features of a situation. For example, in Dachshunds it is much easier for breeders to focus on eradicating cord1 PRA where there is a DNA test than on reducing back disease which is a complex condition, with no “simple” test. The fact that, statistically, Dachshunds are more likely to suffer from back problems than to go blind, may be overlooked just because a test is available for PRA.

17. Selective Perception: This is where we allow our expectations to influence how we perceive the world. If we “know” that a particular line of dogs is prone to a particular health condition, we tend to look for more examples to prove that case, rather than looking more widely across the breed. We end up with “Mrs Miggins’ dogs produce xyz disease”.

18. Stereotyping: This is where we expect a particular situation without having any real evidence. Just because one of Mrs Miggins’ dogs is aggressive, doesn’t mean all her dogs have a bad temperament. People tend to over-use and abuse the limited evidence available.

19. Survivorship Bias: This is an error that comes from focusing only on surviving examples. For example, we might think that Mrs Miggins’ dogs are long-lived, because we haven’t heard of any of her dogs that have died at an unusually young age.

20. Zero-risk Bias: Sociologists have found that we love certainty, even if it’s counter-productive. That’s why many breeders are obsessed with “health-testing” and the continual search for new tests. They should, instead, be focused on the root cause of the problem which is closed stud books and high levels of inbreeding.

All of these cognitive biases are potential stumbling blocks that affect our behaviour and they can prevent us from acting in the best interests of our dogs and our breeds.

However, if we are aware of them, we can turn some of them to our advantage. The way we present information; how we communicate good practices; how we reward and reinforce improved canine health; all these can nudge people in the right direction.